City Council - Regular Meeting

pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And the role. Belzac here. Gustoson. Kenny here. Leansky. Shower here. Stampinado here. Sullivan here. Five present and two absent.

We have a quorum that brings us to questions, comments, and announcements of a general nature. This is on our agenda and this allows anybody from the audience to present anything non-aggenda related. Does anybody in the audience have something they'd want to present that's not on our agenda? If not, we move to the minutes. I'm looking for a motion to approve the May 4th, 2026 minutes. Moved by Alderman Sonado, seconded by Alderman uh Kenny. Any questions or comments regarding those minutes? If not the role. Stampinado I. Kenny I. Belzac I. Shawer abstain. Sullivan

I. Four eyes. One abstension and two absent. The minutes have been approved. Takes us to re receiving of communication. Do any of the aldermen have communications they'd like to share it with the council? Alderwoman Sullivan.

Thank you mayor. Um, I received uh a group um communication from the um residents and condo association for Waterfall Glenn located in W 5 on Southage Road. um checking back in um regarding um a meeting and multiple conversations we have had with um the um DuPage County board members for district 3 and the DuPage County Department of Transportation regarding um traffic and um concerns at South Frontage Road and Cass Avenue. Um there's been an increased uh flurry of activity with the bridge construction by the Illinois Department of Transportation on Cass Avenue. Um a lot of people doing Uturns and cutting through because of a couple of the ramps being closed. So um the condo board has reached out to me again. I have circled back with our county commissioners Lucy Evans and Carrie Galassie. Lucy reported that they have a transportation committee meeting tomorrow and she'll be getting back to me um to see what the plan was because we were left with the understanding me the city of Darian and conveyed to our residents that there was going to be a traffic study followup this spring um and with it being the middle of May um looking for an update on that. Um but I am just stressing to all residents to please be careful. There is a lot of um Daring police have been alerted and they're um you know looking out more. Um a lot of uh vehicles are exiting um I-55 going south um getting off and then doing um a Uturn so that they can get back on I-55. They're doing the U-turn at the light at North Frontage and Cass and um I mean I'm seeing an average of six cars, eight cars during like heavy traffic area. So, if you're making a turn either left or right or it can get a little dicey. So, um just be alert and vigilant while that um bridge work is

being done. And I hope to get some information soon to share with the Waterfall Glenn Condominium and um town home residents about um South Frontage Road. Um secondly, received quite a few emails regarding um a special use um in the Terra Hill North subdivision at 8825 Robert Road. There was a planning and zoning meeting on May 6th. It should be on the agenda for next week um Tuesday, May 26, municipal services meeting and then uh potentially on the city council agenda on June 1st. So I've shared um many of those me all of those messages with um Ryan Murphy um to share with the planning and zoning and municipal services. But um a lot of concerns um a lot of people came to the planning and zoning. Many of us were down in Springfield, so I was not able to attend that meeting, but I will be at municipal services. So, trying to get um more information um convey the concerns of the residents to the um petitioner for that and um see where we go from there.

Okay, that was u a critical meeting. Uh those of you who were not a part of that meeting, weren't there, we like Mary said, we were down in Springfield last week uh when that took place. Alman Stampinado was there. Um, I asked Ralph to come in. I we had a discussion for about an hour um meeting about that. I wanted to get his first impression. I also had a meeting with um with Ryan Murphy and I had a meeting with Dan. So, I have a pretty good picture. I have some concerns not just with how it ended, but with the flow the e and flow of the meeting, how the meeting was conducted and I'll be dealing with that as a separate issue. Um, anyone else have anything to share? says there's no sound on channel 6. I'm sorry.

I'm just getting a message from a resident saying that there's no sound on channel 6. No sound. If she can get YouTube, it's working fine. Okay. Should we hold on?

No. I I would just suggest if anybody would like to get on YouTube, that's still the best option. There's been Comcast problems the last two weeks or last two meetings again. Uh, I'd like to share just one thing as an aside. As you know, we have our hometown hero banners on the various street lights and we've gotten some nice compliments on that. Um, I got a I got an email from John Kalan and John told me a young man who was in the military was at uh either the Cheeseest Place or the Nothing Bun Cake store and he walked out and he looked up and he saw his face on one of the banners uh former military uh and he just thought that he was shocked. Obviously, his parents did this for him and didn't tell him they were going to do it. So, we're getting some compliments on those.

Rich Lepic was putting up his banner. Didn't even know about it, you know. So, it's terrific, you know. I thought it was great.

But it really worked out nicely. I'm very happy that we did that. And again, my thanks to Modell Funeral Home for picking up the cost of those banners. Uh if there's no further communications, we'll go to the mayor's report tonight. Uh we're going to recognize several Hinsdale South High School students uh who are students as part of the Zialar STEM scholars program or fellowship program. Uh this is a program that seeks to promote careers in STEM areas such as science, technology, engineering, mathematics with a focus on students who tra traditionally do not see careers in these areas. The students we are recognizing tonight are all students at Hinsdale South High School and they recently participated in what they call the passion project competition where I had the opportunity to act as one of the judges. I was very impressed with these students and their commitment to their work that I wanted to recognize them at our meeting this evening. Uh Looda, I'm going to mispronounce your name probably. It should be noted that this program was started by Dr. Loa Ojako uh who specializes in hospice and palative care. Also with us tonight is Miss Tracy McDonald, an alumni of Our Lady of Peace School and Hinsdale South High School. Tracy also possesses a master's degree in teacher leadership from Elmer's College and a master's in human anatomy and physiology instruction from the Northeast College of Health Science. She's a recipient of the Illinois Chemical Foundation Teaching Award and in 2025 she received the Zbralder STEM teacher of the year award. Tracy teaches chemistry and anatomy and physiology and is a coordinator of the Zabbralder STEM program at HEL South. I'd like would like Lota and Tracy to come forward to briefly talk about the scholarship program prior to my introducing the students who

participated in the in the program. if you'd come forward.

Thank you, mayor. Hello, everyone. I'm Tracy McDonald and I'm Loto. I said it right. Yes, you did.

Well, a little bit about Zabbralar. Uh, Zbralter Medical helps students say with confidence, "Yes, STEM is a career option for me." And it's interesting that although more than half of the school age population in the United States consists of black, African-American, Hispanic, Latino, and Native American students, these groups are severely under represented in STEM fields. The Zbralter STEM Fellowship was born out of a desire to diversify STEM career fields in the future. We've chosen to do this by giving students at Hinsdale South the opportunity to learn about STEM careers. They have attended seminars from professionals who themselves have had to overcome challenges inherent to being a black, African-American, Hispanic, Latino, or indigenous person of color in occupations predominantly held by white professionals. Students see themselves reflected in these professionals. And this helps students realize that STEM careers are within their reach and that they can overcome barriers just like their speakers did. To encure encourage curiosity in our students, we challenged them to create a passion project that they carried out throughout the year. Students had access to mentors from various Darian community clubs to support them on their journey. A few weeks ago, students presented their product projects to a panel of judges from the community. Zibralar Medical awarded three $1,000 scholarships to the students who received top scores for the presentation of their products projects. But before we present these scholarship awards, I would first like to recognize

our runners up. Their project was called paper hugs and that is Zoha Khan and uh Paige Lilac. So please come up here. Congratulations Paige. Thank you. And so Paige, I have something for you up here as well. Oh, thank you. Okay. Never been here before. I sent you durian pins.

Oh, okay. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to ask you guys to come up in a little bit for a group picture, just so you know. Sounds good. Thank you. We would like to present these scholarship awards now. So students please come forward as your name is called. Arwa Batliwala for her project seeing medicine through the eyes of radiology.

Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Emma Kaylor for her project crochet for a cause.

Congratulations, Emma.

Congratulations. And Nora Schaefer for her project, Innovating Women's Oncology. Dr. Looda and I would like to thank Mayor Maris for serving on our panel of judges. And we would also like to thank the Darian City Council for acknowledging the hard work and perseverance demonstrated by our students as they worked through the year to achieve their project goals. So congratulations to all of our students.

Would you like to add anything about the program? Well, I just want to say thank you for this opportunity um to have our students share a little bit u about uh the program at Hesdale South or and Tracy too. Um we're just truly honored and delighted to be here. Uh this year we had a robust pool of students and all very diverse from different backgrounds and they did exceedingly well um working with mentors from the community and we hope to keep going stronger and stronger each year. Thank you mayor. You're very welcome.

Thank you for all the students and Looda and Tracy get a picture. Okay. Up front. We're going to up here. Yeah. Up in the middle. Okay. closer.

Can I get you to scoop back more? Thanks. No, they're the stars, not me. Close, guys. Excellent. We can do a Oh, perfect. Okay. One, two, three. One, two, three. And then I'm going to do one more. One, two, three. Excellent. Now, I know other people behind me want to take pictures. Great. Oh,

thank you. Thank you everyone. choice. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for organizing this and help us out today. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for the invitation. All right. Enjoy the rest of your meeting. Did I get all your huh? Second to gather up their stuff.

Okay.

City clerk's report. Joanne, uh, I have one announcement. Uh the Darian city offices will be closed on Monday, May 25th in honor of Memorial Day. Thank you. To your administrator's report, Brian, just one item. Uh as Alderwoman Sullivan mentioned, the sound on Comcast council meetings was having issues and that's periodically we are not sure of the issue. We've contacted Comcast. We do recommend people go to YouTube to watch the uh watch the city council meetings. So, if you go to our website and go on to the council agenda, right at the top there's a link. It'll take you right to the YouTube channel. Sarah sent it to me. She's got YouTube working.

Oh, good. Good. Perfect. That's on there. Thank you. That takes us to um have information and questions. Um supposedly the monthly report uh from Greg Thomas. You Thomas. uh on the monthly reports just uh discussion about the um police week which was um last week. It's um uh designated as the week that when May 15th falls in which was uh last week and uh give uh honor to um police officers uh for their work during the year. uh usually less the um officers that were killed in the uh light. So anyway, um last week was celebration of police week.

And this week is National Public Works Week. There you go. Dan Chicken is we've got uh you guys are getting together with Western Springs this year again. Uh so it's a great uh Western Springs and Darian have a great bonding with utilizing tools uh and also shaking ideas off each other. So uh uh we've been invited back to Western Springs for a barbecue with uh the guys for public works. Thank you. Do we do anything for our for our staff in celebration of public works week? I don't know Dan if you have anything separate planned.

Typically we'll do a lunch that's really about the extent of it. So in this case, we let them go, we let other guys go over to Western Springs and, you know, have that camaraderie and, you know, share thoughts, stories, so on, so forth. So it it's a little more than just having it here, if you want to say. Um, any idea when com might start on the corner? Uh, 26 25th 26th is when it's targeted for. Okay. And we have our pre construction with land works tomorrow. Um, so I'll have a better schedule that I'll be posting uh shortly here. Sounds good. Yeah. How about a little update on the property behind Modell?

Um, that's a good uh uh that's a good subject. The developers engineer is supposed to have the drawings done this evening. As a matter of fact, um I have been on him now for the last two weeks and it's it's really the engineer appears to have taken on a little too much work per se. So some things have fallen behind um meaning the developer schedule as well. Uh so the developer himself is irritated. He's very anxious to come back to the city hall with the final plat. So, I'm anticipating that we will have the plat um with the minor changes with the garages, if you recall, those were all moved and the engineering along with the letter of credit uh for city council approval next uh um what's not sure the date. Is it June? Uh Joanne, next city council meeting. June

June 4th, isn't it? Yeah, June 4th. Um, I think finished package June 4th. All right. I'm sorry. June 1st. Excuse I'm sorry. I had to look. Okay. Anything else for Dan or the chief?

Tomie, uh, a couple meetings ago, there was an individual that came in here who had concerns regarding license plate readers. And I don't think we respond to him at that time and I don't mean to put you on the spot now to give an explanation, but in my and I certainly don't think it's it's a constitutional constitutional issue, but there have been other communities that have talked about uh who has access to the information and how long it is kept. And I was hoping not necessarily today, but at some point that you could respond to those things.

Um I think it's an industry standard for uh 30 days and ours is 30 days. okay that we re maintain that there is legislation in front of um the state to uh reduce that and I think I've heard as low as 3 days so we'll monitor that and uh whatever the um law is we will follow that law

yeah chief just for your knowledge last uh week we had a oh excuse me we had an executive board meeting of the uh metrop excuse me the page mayors and managers conference and we took opposition to the House Bill 511 uh per the request of the chief's association um which means we'll send something to state legislators stating our opposition uh I don't know if it's going to matter a lot from what I understand the house unanimously passed it but um we took a strong stand against it as part of uh the u conference and I realized that the chief's assoc association is bothered by it. For those of you who didn't know what it what it basically does is it removes all objectivity from uh the evaluation of a police officer. It basically says there's something called points of contact that a a supervisor can use to evaluate a police officer. And basically it eliminates all those points of contact and it makes evaluation what Greg more uh subjective than objective.

Well, this is not their first time. Um it's probably 15 years ago they passed what they called at that time an anti antiqu law. So, you couldn't look at um you know the amount of traffic stops that were made, the tickets that were made, and a bunch of different things. And this is just their uh the state's next step in uh eliminating any kind of accountability for officers. So, um not too long ago, we had a conversation, I believe, with um Alderman Gustoson at uh police committee meeting about um officers writing tickets and those type of things. and uh we cannot mandate them to do work.

We'll just have to monitor that bill to see if it makes it through the Senate or if the governor signs it. But it's something we really object to. Okay. Uh it takes us to our treasures report. U Mike. Thank you, Mayor. This evening, I'm requesting council approval of warrant number 252626 in the amount of $330,152.15. Motion to approve. Alman Shower, second by Alderwoman Sullivan. Any questions or comments? If not on the roll. Shower. Hi. Sullivan. Hi. Belzac. Hi. Kenny. Hi. Stanado. I'm sorry.

Four eyes and two. Five eyes and two absent. Warrants's been approved. Also requesting council's approval of warrant number 262702 in the amount of $116,42.73 and payroll for the period ended May 14th in the amount of $423,921. Total be approved $539,944.94. Motion to approve second by all. Again questions or comments the vote Kenny I Belzac I shower I Stampinado I Sullivan I five eyes and two absent

and that warrant has been approved takes a standing committee reports to any of the chairman information I'd like to share alderman Belzac. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Uh the next municipal services committee meeting uh due to the Memorial Day holiday will be next Tuesday uh May the 26th at 6 p.m. in council chambers. Thank you, Alderwoman Sullivan. Thank you, mayor. Um, the next administrative finance committee meeting will be on Monday, June 1st at 6 PM in the city hall conference room. Thank you, Alderman Kennedy.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, this evening the police committee uh met and we passed the minutes for April 20th, 2026, and we've sent them to the clerk's office. Our next meeting is scheduled for June 15, 2026 at 6 p.m. Cross Atlanta Police training room pending agenda items.

Thank you very much. That takes us to questions and comments agenda related. Anyone in the audience have any questions regarding our agenda? Obviously not. We move on to old business. There being none, we move to the consent agenda. Please bear with me. Item A, motion to grant a waiver of a map license bond requirement for the Darian District 61 Educational Foundation. Item B, motion approve authorizing the purchase of one new Microsoft Server CL licensing and installation and amount not to exceed 17,600 at public works. Item C, motion to approve one electronics recycling event with the city's current refuge hauler Lakeshore recycling system an amount not to exceed $9,750. Item D, motion authorizing the mayor to execute a contract extension with Lakeshore Recycling Systems for the city of Darian's 2026 street sweeping program not to exceed $53,75. Item E, motion authorizing a contingency amount of $3,500 for un unforeseen incidents that require street sweeping services. Item F, motion to approve the tuition fee for Deputy Chief Jason Norton to attend the Senior Management Institute for Police Session 99 hosted by the Police Executive Research Forum Forum in an amount not to exceed $12,000 using training and education budgeted funds. Item G, motion to adopt an intergovernmental agreement between the Darian Park District and the city department, city of Darian Police Department regarding the use of Southgrow Park Pond for the youth fishing tournament 2026. And item H, motion for uh for the payment of the

2026 2027 annual membership dues with the DUP page Metropolitan Emergency Response Investigation Team of DuPage Colony otherwise known as merit in the amount of $9,000 using budgeted funds. Motion to approve almanado second by alderman Kenny and the role. Stampinado I Kenny I. Belzac. Hi Sullivan. Hi Shower. Hi. Five eyes and two absent. The

consent agenda has been approved. Takes us new business. There being none, takes us to questions, comments, and announcements of the general nature. Any of the aldermen have anything they like to Okay. If not, I would like to um I had the honor of addressing the gathering at the dedication of the blue star memorial uh that was recently completed by the Daring Garden Club. It's at the Daring Community Park. The new memorial honors all have served our country and the armed services and is a beautiful addition to the already existing memorial at the community park. Many thanks to the Darian Garden Club for all their hard work. Then on Sunday, I attended the Darian Dash and had an opportunity to ride the course where over 300 participants either walked or ran. I cannot say enough about the time and effort put in by April Padik, Jessica Play, and Mindy Sidler whose efforts assure the success of this program. I also want to thank the numerous sponsors who supported the program and an opportunity to set up booths at the event. We had a beautiful day for the event and I think everybody who attended had a wonderful time. And that's all I have.

Joe, um I know I got a couple friends who are Lions and the Lions did amen's job also of helping with that. So I want to make sure that they uh they get credit where credit is due. They had we had six or seven vendors and I got a chance to talk to several of them and um just to let them know that we're interested in their success and uh they found that to be truly appreciative. The other thing I want to mention, April reminded me of this today. Every week we put out a business of the week and a restaurant of the week and we've been getting a lot of really positive feedback from those restaurants and those businesses that they're very appreciative of the fact that we're doing that and it seems to be really working out well. I'm sure all of you see that see these on Facebook. Um we're going to continue to do it. We're going to hit all the shopping centers and have individual businesses but one restaurant of the week and one business of the week. And so, um, it was something that we worked on

and rather than going out there and interviewing people, we thought taking a picture of the business and highlighting it on our, um, direct connect and highlighted it on our web page is a real plus and it really looks like it's been a hit for a lot of our businesses. Anything else? If not, I'd like a motion to adjourn. All the woman Sullivan, second by Alman Shower. All in favor? I. Thank you, folks.